“Religious differences could become an issue” – a very different answer

First, two babies are born within minutes of each other and then accidentally switched at birth in the hospital. Second, they are from very different backgrounds. One set of parents is tribal Hindu, the other Muslim. The twist? After a long battle with the authorities, the DNA tests finally come through two years and nine months later… and the toddlers refuse to leave the parents who have raised them.

On Wednesday the couples head to court to confirm that they will bring up each other’s children. The story is from the north-eastern Indian state of Assam.”

And then this:

““I ask him if their religious differences could become an issue some day. “A child is a child. He’s God’s gift, he’s not Hindu or Muslim, everyone comes from the same source, from the same design. They become Hindus and Muslims here,” he says.”

Two families who have spent years trying to understand – and prove – what happened to the children they each created and gave birth to. Only to find that the two boys will not swap back – even though a test proves they “should”. And then the love of all for each – so much more than any “love of religion”.

“A child is a child … they become Hindus and Muslims here.”

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“The mother and brothers of Jesus arrived and, standing outside, sent in a message asking for him. A crowd was sitting round him at the time the message was passed to him, ‘Your mother and brothers and sisters are outside asking for you.’ He replied, ‘Who are my mother and my brothers?’ And looking round at those sitting in a circle about him, he said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers. Anyone who does the will of God, that person is my brother and sister and mother.’” Mark 3:31-35

‘Who are my mother and my brothers?’

The very Jesus of the very God-head of this whole Christian faith thing … denying his own family. And opening up the debate about conception. About biology and is he or isn’t he? With all that science that proves whether I should (or should not) “believe”.

The essence of whether I love an imaginary friend or a real living being. The debating tactic of whether I am stupid or astute – whether I am a brainwashed-brainwasher, or a person of integrity. And the right/wrong, good/bad, hate you/love you, how could you/how can’t you “religious debating juggernaut” rumbles on.

And in this news item – the same …

“I ask him if their religious differences could become an issue some day.”

But a very different answer.

“A child is a child … they become Hindus and Muslims here.”

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We seem to love to find a chink to chisel … a difference to divide. We seem to be in love with being right so we can look down on those who are not.

And yet two families who discover their own child has been given to another family, who were told (when they queried it) that “his wife was mentally ill and needed psychiatric help”, who fought the state obstacles and disbelief of the truth for more than three years – only to find the two young boys would not budge …

Religion is Irrelevant.

“A child is a child … they become Muslims and Hindus (and Christians) here.”

Religion is no more than a bricks and mortar man-made house we each buy with excitement and commitment … that we each then make our own as we decorate and change things around to “put our stamp on it” … and into which (when we sell it for another bricks and mortar man-made house) a different family comes along and decorates and changes things around to remove us from their new house.

But when “a house” becomes “a home”?

Then a home is forever – no matter which “house” we currently live in.